HD 7770

onetruecharlatanApr 19, 2012, 4:42 PM

Hi,

Purchased a Sapphire HD 7770 GHz card from Amazon. Installed last Saturday, had problems with CCC 12.3. Found a 7770 specific CCC setup from ATi (8.xx), so removed ALL of the old drivers, (regedit, folder removal, CCleaner, Drive Sweeper in safe mode, etc), but that didn't show with a right click on desktop. So I re-installed 12.3 and all seemed ok.

I have made no overclocks to this card, nor the CPU or RAM. Only had the card installed for 5 days.

Anyone have any ideas as to why I'm getting these graphical glitches? I'm starting to suspect I have a "moody" card.

Tried 3 games to see how they compared to the 4870x2 it had replaced.

Alan Wake - crashed once with temps on the GPU around the 52c @ 60% fan

World of Tanks - crashed several times since card installed. Unable to check temps as it was a full reset required.

SWTOR - crashed twice - again, full reset required.

Also, after installation of the card, seemed to take quite a while to boot into windows. Just hung on the "Starting Windows" screen (win7 pro 64 bit). Had to walk away and go watch something for a couple of hours - came back - windows user login screen was showing. Like it was having trouble with the drivers, but no BSOD. Hasn't done this since though, not to that extent anyway.

Don't think it's anything else on my rig. Built it in December 2011 for the SWTOR launch. Specs are:

GPU - HIS HD4870x2 (at the time of build. Died last week, hence the HD7770 now).

As an interim replacement for the dead 4870x2, I used an ATi X850 XT PE 256MB card, just to get to desktop, browse web, (to look for next GPU and read mail), and this showed none of the symptoms that this card is now.

Think I should just get Amazon to RMA it? I was planning on a second purchase of this card at the end of this month for Cross Fire

I'm now wondering whether I should have gone down the GTX 460 route. Overclockers.co.uk have the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1GB @ £128. What do you think of this card, (would also XF this card if it seems a better option).

Don't know what the problem is, looks like a faulty card. You could try uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, but what I want to point out is - you downgraded if you only got one of those cards... The gaming-equivalent of an HD 4870X2 is an HD 7850.

It's not the drivers. The X850XT PE worked fine on them, (for desktop/web work anyway).

I know this card is a backwards step, but the 4870x2 was 3yrs old, purchased cheaply 2nd hand, only DX10 compatible and this suited my budget last month. Like I said, I intended to buy another of the 7770 at the beginning of May for CrossFire, but, as this one is seeming to be possibly faulty, I'm now wondering whether to do so. Could just be a bad card I guess. Early bugs, poorly paid foreign workers on the production line, wiping their filthy hands all over the cards prior to shipping, just to teach rich westeners a lesson , etc.

I was debating on maybe getting a couple of GTX460's instead, or would a 560 Ti be better?

As I write this reply, the screen has "blinked" (full black screen for a millisecond), 3 times then desktop came back up. GPU-Z is reading 32c on the card @ 60% fan. Possibly the desktop picture of Dannii Minogue on the beach, wet t-shirt with VERY pert breasts on show is causing the gpu to overload O_O ?